


Eleventh Hour

by AwCoffeeNo



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Developing Relationship, Dorian Pavus Has Issues, Herbalism, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, in which Dorian is so horny he pretends to be interested in botany
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28252728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwCoffeeNo/pseuds/AwCoffeeNo
Summary: "Dorian has crossed oceans -- literally! -- to be who he is freely. He has left family, fortune, and title behind for it, arriving friendless and penniless in a foreign land so that he has the freedom to love who he loves. Ironic, then, that when the opportunity presents itself to do just that, he finds himself unable to rise to the occasion."A re-imagining of Dorian and Mahanon's romance, taken at a somewhat slower pace.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25





	1. Slow Dance/Long Nights

It is shaping up to be a night for the history books in Orlais. The energy of it is absolutely buzzing in the air around them. Everyone can feel it. 

Dorian’s feet hurt. It’s all he can think about. He’s spent long enough wearing sensible, battle-ready boots recently that his feet now protest to formalwear. Unbelievable. On this historic night, this absolutely _crucial_ night for the fate of the Inquisition and probably the whole world, the blisters breaking out on the back of his heels are dominating his thoughts. 

It’s okay, though. Their fearless leader, Inquisitor Mahanon Lavellan, seems to have everything under control. 

It’s incredible to watch. It seems not so long ago that Dorian could consistently detect discomfort under the Inquisitor’s shaky diplomacy. Now, as Dorian places himself out-of-the-way in the guest garden, sipping on punch and avoiding all but the smallest of pleasantries, Mahanon whirls about the Winter Palace and says nothing but the exact right thing at the exact right time. Like a delicate instrument tuned to precisely the right note, he is better at the great Orlesian game of diplomacy and subterfuge than any of them could have possibly hoped. He is everywhere at once: both where he should be _and_ where he shouldn’t. He slips away to the library, the servant's quarters, and even the royal wing, yet still manages to be back at the party the instant anyone is looking -- spotless, smiling, and making small talk with the Dowager like he’s been doing this for years. 

Dorian, watching and quietly waiting on the Inquisitor’s next move, feels... small and out of place. There’s a familiar aching tension in his shoulders and the pit of his gut which he hasn’t felt since he left Tevinter’s extravagant social scene many years ago. One born of having to watch every gesture and fleeting expression. It is as exhausting as it is familiar. 

When Mahanon comes around to check on him, his concern is thinly veiled enough. “How are you holding up?” he asks Dorian, brow briefly furrowing. “Remind you of home?” 

It _does_ remind him of home, and that is exactly as much of a bad thing as Mahanon’s tone suggests. But he brushes the Inquisitor off. He’s an old hand at these types of events, despite his own discomfort. Caustic as ever, he gripes on the reek of excessively-applied perfume in the air, and how it _still_ manages to smell worse than the most downtrodden tavern in Minrathous, and leaves it at that. Then watches Mahanon go, trying his best to school his expression into one of disinterested neutrality. 

The man is a miracle, and Dorian doesn’t mean it in the Andrastian, sent-by-the-Maker sort of way that everyone else seems to. The Inquisitor is nothing like he expected: a little Dalish elf, shorter than Dorian by a few inches, and who he certainly outweighs. Brilliant red hair, a wry sense of humor, and a sharper eye for good liquor than many of the alcoholics Dorian has known. Interpersonally, he is a man of incredible patience; on the battlefield, he is a hot-headed combatant who insists on throwing himself headlong at any enemy, his knives spinning and his armor wholly inadequate for a frontal attack. It suggests that he trusts Dorian’s barrier spells more than even Dorian himself does. 

Now, he is showing himself to be not only all these things, but also a surprisingly gifted diplomat, and quick on his feet in the ballroom.

And he’s got a _great_ ass. Not that Dorian is looking or has ever looked, because he hasn’t. Especially not at totally inappropriate moments. Like when Mahanon is looting yet another corpse. Or when he’s turning some massive wheel to open a gate sure to hold hosts of enemy troops behind it. 

Or now, as he watches Mahanon disappear into the crowd of party-goers. 

\-- 

Once it’s all over, and _the day is saved_ , he finds Mahanon outside the Winter Palace, leaning heavily against the balcony railing, as far from the noise and light of the party as possible. 

Dorian, personally, is more than a few drinks deep at this point, threatening to tip over from the realm of a pleasant buzz into full-blown drunkenness. Following the news of their victory, the mood of the evening had turned rapidly: as soon as everyone caught wind of the now-beloved Inquisitor’s connection to Dorian, he could hardly fend off the Orlesian nobles. His cup was filled and refilled, and fueled by something uncomfortably close to embarrassment, he’d partaken heartily. 

Empress Celene has survived the night. It is a victory, and with that victory comes relief: another watershed event that puts them further away from the horrifying future he and Mahanon saw together. It is also a victory he feels owes him little credit. A fireball here, a fireball there, sure, but nothing _necessary_. Mostly, he just stood by quietly, and he’s embarrassed he found himself both so uncomfortable and with so little to offer. 

Of course, he is planning to gloss comfortably over these unwanted emotions. He is already halfway into some thoughtless banter on the variety of inquiries he has received about Mahanon’s marital status before he gets a good look at the other man. Mahanon's hands are shaking. As Dorian approaches, he clasps them together tightly over the edge of the railing, but it’s a moment too late to prevent Dorian from seeing it. “But I see you’re… lost in thought. Are you alright?” 

Mahanon laughs a little. That, too, is shakey. “Honestly? I think my ears are still ringing a little from the anxiety of it all. A month of preparation, and it still didn’t feel like enough. But... it’s good. It’s all good. Things could hardly have gone better, I think.” 

“Really? You, anxious? You seemed perfectly at home with the whole affair to me. I had no idea you could dance like that, Inquisitor.” 

The Inquisitor smiles weakly. “Well, that dance with the Dutchess wasn’t my first rodeo, but it was my second. Josephine insisted.” 

“You looked good, though. Calm as a duck gliding on a lake.” 

Mahanon smiles weakly. “And paddling like hell underneath. Looks can be deceiving. But I suppose I was more afraid of Josephine having a heart attack tonight than I was anything else. Perhaps that helped.” 

It’s good to hear the Inquisitor joke. But there’s still that ever-present furrow in his brow. For once, for fucking once, Mahanon deserves to bask in the glory of it all. Just a little. Just for tonight. 

“Come on now, don’t look so grim. You _literally_ saved the day. Look at it! Everyone is dancing and drinking their wits away. The day is saved!” Alcohol going to his head in a rush, Dorian holds his hand out on impulse. “I know what you need: a distraction! Come dance with me?” 

The proposition falls from Dorian’s lips easily. He’s lucky, because if he’d had a little less alcohol in his system at the time, or had an instant to see the trepidation on Mahanon’s face as he shakes his head, he might not have been able to keep the desperate edge out of his voice. 

“Thank you, Dorian, but I think I’d rather keep things quiet. Another time, perhaps.” 

Diplomatic. Polite. Kind. Exactly what he has come to expect from the Herald. 

Luckily -- if it can indeed be called luck! -- Dorian is used to these kinds of rejections, and smiles reflexively in response. “Well! At the very least, let me get us another round of drinks. I _will_ see you celebrating somehow.” 

Not waiting for any response, he turns back to the ballroom. 

A moment slower, and Mahanon would have seen the disappointment that unfolds on Dorian’s face the instant his back is turned. Dorian is grateful the other man is spared that, at least. It would be just another thing Mahanon would have to politely deal with. He certainly does not want to add another entry to that very long, very unfair list. 

He doesn’t know why he is still trying. He’s been trying since they first met in Haven, and has nothing to show for it but an ever-growing feeling of shame. Every moment where he imagines that they’re going to finally get closer, that Mahanon is going to finally bridge the gap between them from friends into something entirely different, Dorian finds himself held back at a friendly distance. They are friends, they are arguably close, in as much as Mahanon is close to anyone. But they are nothing more. 

And Dorian, true to form, is never straightforward enough in his advances to have been formally shot down. 

So he keeps trying. 

He wishes he knew how to stop trying. 

\-- 

That night, Dorian returns to his quarters and inspects his own face critically in the small glass of polished silver which hangs over his vanity. 

It is a luxury, here in the South, to be able to inspect his own features in a full-sized mirror: back in Haven, he’d had to make do with a locket, the mirrored interior of which he had managed to crack early in his travels. Bad luck, carrying a cracked mirror. It might explain a lot, actually, if he thinks about it. 

To gaze on himself in a mirror is a luxury, but it is one luxury that he does not appreciate at the moment. 

Now, Dorian finds little in his own visage to recommend himself. Sure, he’s handsome enough, the immaculate result of a hundred years of careful breeding, but he looks and feels… stale. His haircut must be years out of fashion back home in the Imperium (not that anyone would know it here), and the variety of salves and creams with which he might have protected his skin from the effects of the harsh mountain climate are long spent. Although he’s been getting by as best he can with charms, he swears he can see fresh wrinkles setting in on his forehead, and his skin is constantly dry. Soon, he’ll be getting onto the latter half of his thirties, and it seems he is the last one to notice that he is getting old. 

All the harshness of the cold mountain air at Skyhold just puts a healthy glow in Mahanon’s skin, leaving his cheeks and the tip of his nose rosy. It’s so unfair. 

Dorian turns his head in the mirror. Examining the sharp angle of his jaw and the high slant of his cheekbones. Poking at the newly-emerged dark circles under his eyes. Too old now, he supposes, to be a particularly eligible bachelor. Certainly too old to be halfway at war with his father in full view of half the Inquisition. 

It has been a month, at least, yet it still makes him shudder to recall Magister Pavus’s surprise appearance in Redcliff, and, worse, his own reaction. 

Mahanon had let him stall when they’d arrived at Redcliffe that day. They’d perused the market stands far longer than the small selection of magical items justified, visited the docks, and even walked down the lakeside together, Mahanon pocketing the spindleweed and blood lotus as they went, maintaining a running commentary on their uses in an attempt to fill the space in the conversation left by Dorian’s uncharacteristic silence. 

He’d been given more than enough time to prepare himself, and calm his own frayed nerves. And yet… 

It is utterly unfair that he can count on one hand the number of times in his life his voice has failed him, slipping from biting insults to broken syllables, and yet one of those times had to be under the piercing gazes of both the Inquisitor and his own father. His own fault: he had been the one to choose the words which laid bare his wounds.

 _“You tried to change me.”_

Best left alone, perhaps, the memory of the Magister’s attempts to reform Dorian’s predilections, lest he once again put himself in the position of losing control of his own emotions. 

There is only so much time his involvement with the Inquisition will buy him. Unless the world really _does_ end… 

Yes, he supposes the time is coming where he should quietly set aside his differences with his father, even if those differences amount on his father’s end to a complete rejection of everything about Dorian which makes him _Dorian_. He supposes that it’s time, too, for him to settle down into his inevitable place as an unhappily married man, subsisting on the occasional secret tryst with various courtesans. They will be, of course, brilliant, handsome, incredibly expensive, and utterly discrete. And so much younger than him, he imagines, as the years go on. Time to take his place in the Magisterium, where despite his own best efforts, a seat will wait empty for him when the time comes. His father made things clear on _that_ , at least. 

It is a grim future, all told, and he blinks reflexively against the familiar knot of sadness that rises in his throat as he thinks of it. As if there are even any tears for him to blink back. Time and practice have left his eyes dry. 

Alexius’s notes, rescued valiantly from the fire at Haven by Dorian himself, are sitting stacked beside his bedside. As is becoming his custom, he busies himself with them, trying to take his mind from the matter. 

“No point wallowing in it, is there?” he says to the empty air. 

There is no response. 

Good.

“Careful, Dorian. I think you’re getting paranoid.” 

Being in the habit of talking to himself, he’d warded the small room above the gardens where he sleeps almost as soon as he arrived (and reinforced said wards almost to the point of absurdity when Madame de Fer had taken the room next door).

Still, ever since Cole started hanging around him, he’s had less confidence in even the most private-seeming moments to pass undetected. 

\--

The Exalted Plains make Dorian’s skin crawl. 

All in all, this particular foray into fieldwork with the Inquisition could be going better. 

He of all people should not fear the dead: he is a necromancer. Classically trained at one of the best Circles Tevinter has to offer. But that was all, admittedly, academic in nature. He’s not scared of a corpse, certainly: he’s gotten close-up with plenty as part of his training. He’s not even particularly unnerved with the prospect of a reanimated corpse. 

But the fact of the matter is, none of it was like _this_. 

Not only is Dorian ill-suited to traveling roughly in the countryside, but there’s something about the sheer scale of death in the Exalted Plains that is unlike anything he’s seen up to this point. Even the nightmare that was Alexius’s dungeons was mostly just floodwater, cold rock, and red lyrium. A spectacle of horrors, to be sure, but even there, there were fewer corpses. 

This is different. 

Dorian can hardly be called a sound sleeper at the best of times. It’s especially true now, when he’s trying to sleep with only a bedroll to separate him from the rocky ground, his feet so cold they _hurt_. 

Apparently, as Dorian has learned since joining the Inquisition, it is just fine when feet hurt from the cold. Mahanon told him back in the Hinterlands that if your hands and feet hurt from the cold, that’s actually _good_ because that means everything is still alive, and there’s no reason to worry until they start going numb. And if Andraste’s Herald himself says it’s fine, it must be!

Which is to say, perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s hardly slept a wink since they arrived. 

That is a lie. He has not ‘hardly slept a wink’. He literally has not closed his eyes for a span longer than a few furtive moments since they arrived at the Exalted Plains two days ago. 

He’s not scared. Not exactly. It would make more sense to him if he was scared. He’s heard the others wake in the night before with a cry, obviously roused from slumber by some phantom danger. An appropriate and expected thing for warriors and those forced to take up the mantle of warriors alike. The Fallow Mire has been the occasion of more than one such night terror that woke the whole camp, leaving them all standing about frantically in wet socks and nightclothes, with their weapons drawn against a non-existent enemy. 

(Sera sleeps nude. How she does it, in climates when Dorian finds himself shivering himself to sleep even fully-dressed, he has no idea.) 

For Dorian’s part, he’d been more troubled by the damp ground in the Fallow Mire than he had been the undead. A swamp, a plague? It’s practically cliché. No, this is different. It feels… haunted here. Or perhaps corrupted is a better word. Unclean and ruined, deep into the very earth. 

Entire towns laid waste. The grassy plains, still burning. Bodies piled so high that spirits tore through the veil to possess the corpses. Bones built into the very structure of the ramparts, skulls heartlessly incorporated into the furious building of battlements. Rib bones scattered like pikes into the trenches. Dorian imagines that he can feel the memory of it in the Fade, like blood seeping into the very ground on which they are sleeping. 

The first night, he’d sat awake in his tent all night, feverishly writing down his observations on the legions of undead they had encountered at the Western Ramparts by the light of a tiny, flickering tongue of veilfire. It seemed… possible, perhaps, in circumstances such as these, to find the dead rising spontaneously, but still not likely. But, if it _is_ a deliberate use of necromancy, then it is magic that seems well outside of the capabilities of all the various warring factions. Regardless, the astonishing nature of the phenomenon had been enough excuse for Dorian to stay awake well past his companions. 

Tonight, he supposes he has no excuse, but Sera took enough of a beating today that she asks him no questions when he emerges from his tent around midnight to offer to take her watch. So he sits awake, trying to get some of the heat from the low-burning campfire to penetrate through the thick leather of his boots, and stares out into the blackness as though _it_ might provide him some explanation for the senselessness of the carnage around them. 

The night is freezing cold, and he’s not wearing any gloves. Doesn’t have a single pair to his name. He is sure Mahanon would provide him with some in an instant if he were to ask (probably digging them out of his insane system of chests in the Undercroft, in which he seems to have stored personal effects looted from every corner of the South). He has simply never felt willing to ask. Now, the cold eats into his hands, and he does nothing to stop it. He could easily cast a charm to throw off a little extra heat, but he doesn’t. It feels _right_ for his hands to ache with cold. Sitting there, he slowly bends and straightens his stiff fingers. Not numb, not just yet. 

\--

When Mahanon comes out and finds him at watch, he must have drifted off, at least for a few moments: the touch of the Inquisitor’s hand on his shoulder makes him start violently. 

“Is everything alright, Dorian?” 

Dorian scrubs a hand across his face. Mahanon’s own hand stays in place on his shoulder, almost as if Dorian needs to be held steady. “Yes, yes -- everything’s quite alright, Inquisitor.” 

Calling Mahanon by his title feels almost like a punishment Dorian is inflicting on himself. They have hardly spoken since the night at the Winter Palace, and Dorian wonders if the Herald has even given their brief interactions a thought since. Still, it feels… correct, at the moment, to refer to the Inquisitor formally. He just wishes he didn’t still want Mahanon’s name on his lips as badly as he does. 

If the other man even notices Dorian’s return to formality, he certainly doesn’t acknowledge it. He takes a seat across from Dorian at the fire, drawing his worn leather coat tighter about his slim shoulders. “Maker, it’s freezing out here. Aren’t you cold?” 

_To the bone._ “I’m fine. Why are you awake?” 

“Why are _you_ sitting out here in the cold?” 

Dorian is surprised he finds himself being honest. Exhaustion does things to people, he supposes. “I couldn’t sleep. This whole place gives me the heebie jeebies. It just feels like death on top of more death, you know? Might as well make myself useful if I’m going to be awake anyway.” 

The Inquisitor nods. “I feel it too. Many of my people died here, long ago. I think the land remembers it.” 

_Maker._ As if he could be any more thoughtless. Of course, Mahanon knows: the greater part of the elven people met their end on the very fields on which they are pitching their camp. If it feels haunted here for Dorian, he can hardly imagine what the other man must be feeling. 

He doesn’t know what, exactly, he should say. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it. “I’m -- forgive me, Inquisitor, that was thoughtless. Perhaps now I see why I am not alone in my insomnia.” 

“I’m supposed to be taking over for Sera,” Mahanon replies evenly, and Dorian winces inwardly. Or perhaps not _totally_ inwardly, because Mahanon adds: “It’s okay. It was a long time ago, Dorian. ” 

The Inquisitor’s tone is calm and tinted with a hint of gentleness that Dorian finds almost upsetting. Again: it is absolutely _idiotic_ that he is losing sleep over a few skeletons. 

Mahanon withdraws something from one of his coat pockets. An herb of some sort, one of the many he is constantly plucking and stashing away -- they all look the same to Dorian, botany was never his strong suit. “Here,” he says. “Let me make you something to help you sleep.” 

Reflexively, Dorian shakes his head. “I’m perfectly fine, really, I don’t need --” 

“Don’t even try. I saw the light coming from your tent last night, you know. You're not subtle. Besides, it’s the least I can do after dragging you out here.” 

“Dragged? You hardly could have stopped me.” 

“So is that a yes?” 

Dorian sighs. His eyes do ache, and sleep seems no closer now than before. “What is it, exactly?” 

The Inquisitor shrugs. “I only know the name in Dalish. It’ll do well enough to knock you out for a few hours, though, and that’s my official Holy Verdict.” 

Dorian smiles, and finds himself unable to muster any protest. There’s some water left staying warm in the pot over the fire, and he simply sits and watches as Mahanon rips up the herb into a flask and carefully pours hot water over it, then swirls it around a few times before handing it to Dorian. It has a strong odor, pungent and earthy, but the warmth of the flask feels good cupped against his icy hands. 

He takes an experimental sip. 

Mahanon grins when he almost spits it back out. “This is _disgusting_. You could have warned me!” 

The elf’s eyes sparkle in the firelight. “Come on now, Dorian. I won’t have you passing out on top of some abomination tomorrow because of your delicate taste buds.” 

Dorian shudders a little, but raises his flask to the sky. “Well, then. For the glory of the Inquisition!” 

He downs the tonic. Coughs. 

Mahanon laughs again, bright and clear, hiding his grin behind his fingers. 

There’s an ache in his chest, and it just won’t quit. It stirs again, seeing Mahanon smile at his folly. He sees the other man break out a genuine smile so rarely, and it warms him to his chilly core to see the way it softens the elf’s sharp features. 

For the longest time, Dorian really believed that he had successfully relegated himself to only the kind of attraction that could be resolved with a quick fuck. That there was nothing more than that he even wanted, nothing that he even missed. 

Too often, it seems, he manages to believe the lies he tells himself. 

\-- 

The next day, when they have fought their way through the legions of undead to the Eastern Ramparts, and Solas has just broken down the barrier keeping them back from the body pit, Dorian finds himself shooting Mahanon with a desperate look. 

The other man is stepping forward, just about to strike a flame himself. 

_“Please,”_ Dorian mouths. _“Let me.”_

A nod, and Mahanon steps back. 

Dorian throws a bolt of fire, and lights the pit aflame with considerably more power than is strictly necessary. 

It feels good. It feels _really_ fucking good.


	2. Stasis/A Delicate Touch

The thread burns down, once again, to Dorian’s fingers. 

Biting back a curse, he drops the burning fragment down to the stone floor and grinds it out under his boot. Cutting another small length, he lights it at one end and tries once again to focus his magic. Tries to get the spell _right_ this time. To catch onto the heaving mass that is reality and shove it, somehow, through the needle’s eye. 

Once again, his efforts yield nothing: the flame burns right down to his fingertips. Another tiny burn to join the rest. 

So. “Time magic.” It cannot be said it is going well. 

It’s late enough now that even Leliana’s crows have gone to roost, but Dorian remains in the research tower, burning the midnight oil. Many of the notes from Magister Alexius continue to border on incomprehensible, even to Dorian, who is most familiar with his hand. Unlabeled diagrams of twisted shapes, undefined abbreviations which were clearly only for Alexius’s own personal use, and looping cursive piled on top of itself. He’d even briefly considered braving visiting Alexius to ask him to explain some particularly difficult passages, but there’s also the matter of the bloodstains on the pages, and the matter of how little he wants to be confronted with how far his former mentor has fallen… 

He lights another string and takes a deep breath. Calls into his mind that same image of a swirling, heaving vortex, and the tiny eye of a needle. He can _feel_ how the spell should go, he just can’t quite grab hold of it. It feels like a tiny button his fingers keep slipping on; the hook of a locket he can’t quite get into place. 

_You’re smarter than this, Pavus. Come on, come on --_

Another burn to his fingertips. Stubbornly, Dorian snuffs the flame between his thumb and forefinger, letting out a frustrated breath. 

“You’re hurting yourself.” 

He almost jumps at Cole’s doleful voice coming from behind him. 

It should have stopped startling him by now, but it hasn’t. More nights than not, Skyhold’s resident -- well, spirit, as it were, although Dorian wishes Cole would be a little more forthright about exactly _what_ he is -- turns up with some cryptic comment. Lately, it’s been mainly to tell Dorian with something approaching glee about whatever wonderful thing Mahanon has done today. 

It’s been two weeks now. Dorian has remained at Skyhold while the Inquisitor tears about the Hinterlands with Solas, doing an endless string of good deeds which Cole both manages to know of, and insists on recounting to him in excruciating detail. Bear skins to keep the Hinterlands refugees warm, an abundance of ram meat to feed them. Flowers for the dead wife of an elven widower. Potions to help a poor peasant's wife with her asthma. Restocking the whole of Redcliff with herbs. The bitter, less charitable side of Dorian thinks that surely Andraste’s Herald must have people to do this for him; the more practical side reminds him that no one else cares enough to bother. Another part of him is much too sure that Mahanon knows exactly what it’s like to be cold and hungry, and that -- 

“Red crystals, growing out of everything. Growing out of people, too. It is the only thing warm here. Lonely, waiting. Afraid. The water is everywhere, and it is so cold. You are always... so cold.” 

“Can we not do this right now, Cole? I’m trying to make myself useful. I think maybe I’m finally getting somewhere.” 

The “somewhere” in question might just be a splitting headache, but he’s sure Cole can sense that off him, too. 

Cole’s eyes go unfocused, fixed on Dorian, speaking very slowly. Dorian shivers. Cole is right: he is always cold. “Red light, glowing on their skin. They’re dying. Corrupted, decaying from the inside out. The end of the world. You remember it. It happened. It was _real_. If you can make this work, even the tiniest piece, you think that will make it feel alright. Make it _all_ feel alright… but you can’t.” 

“Don’t--” 

Cole’s eyes snap back into focus. “You need to slow something. You can’t slow the flame, but maybe, you could slow me. I want you to try, if it will stop you hurting.” 

Dorian really needs to figure out a way to keep Cole’s hands out of his mind. Wards or something, he doesn’t know. He swears he’s seen Solas do it on occasion: snap up a spell and shut Cole right out of his mind. He should really ask the other mage about it when he gets back. 

“I’m... not sure that’s a good idea, Cole. I think it would be better if you stayed a safe distance back from all of this, really. I’m trying to start the spell off with a small radius, but… well, as you can see, there hasn’t exactly been much of a “spell” to speak of yet. Regardless, I am perfectly alright.” 

Cole opens his mouth again, and for a tense moment, Dorian thinks he’s about to launch into another of his cryptic mind-reading sessions to contradict him on that statement. 

“You won’t hurt me,” is all Cole says, and it’s spoken with such remarkable confidence that he almost finds himself believing it. “You need to try it on me.” 

He wants to protest further, but Cole has already darted back from Dorian and across the hall. “Try it on me… now!” 

“Cole, wait --”

No time for Dorian to think. There’s a blur of motion and shadow when Cole rushes toward him, and Dorian catches a glint of silver in Cole’s hand. Cole trusts him completely, he realizes, to cast this as of yet wholly unsuccessful spell. 

A rush of panic. He doesn’t think: he casts reflexively. All he can see is the silver of the knife in Cole’s hand. A flick of his fingers, and… 

Time rushes to a halt. 

The very air seems to blur, and Cole is slowed to a crawl as he lunges forward toward Dorian. Cole inches forward, and Dorian simply steps to one side. 

That is about as much as he can manage. The next moment, the spell is slipping from his grasp, and his feet just about give out from under him. Flashing back to lightning speed, Cole strikes with absolute confidence at the empty place in the air where Dorian was just standing. 

He was wrong about the whole needle and thread thing. It’s not like forcing the whole of their Universe through the eye of a needle. It’s more like… taking something very, very small, and holding it extremely still. A possible task, not an impossible one, but something that requires a more delicate touch than he is used to. 

It’s also breathtakingly difficult to cast, especially starting from a place of exhaustion. Dorian reaches out desperately for one of the bookcases and manages to steady himself. " _Maker_ , Cole. Please never do that again.” 

Cole beams at him from under the brim of his hat. “I _knew_ you could do it.” 

\-- 

The next day, Cole brings him a jar with a little white butterfly in it. “You can use it for your magic, but let it out by the end of the day” he instructs firmly, and then vanishes into thin air. 

So, by the time the Inquisitor returns to Skyhold -- absolutely glowing with happiness, his armor covered in dried blood and with a few new recruits in tow -- Dorian can reliably cast what is, to the best of his knowledge, the only functional time magic spell in the extant universe. Not only can he cast it, but he can also stay on his feet _after_ casting it. 

Well. Most of the time. 

He takes the remainder of Alexius’s notes -- key, lock, needle, the Universe, twisting shapes in his dreams, magic that could end their world, or, should the worst happen, provide one last chance of saving it -- and immolates them without ceremony out behind the stables. 

His burned fingertips have blistered, cracked from the cold, bled, and, by the time of the Inquisitor’s return, finally begun to heal. 

\-- 

A few days after Mahanon’s party returns, when Dorian wanders down to his nook in the library in the morning, he finds a gift waiting for him alongside a note from the Inquisitor. 

_So you don’t give yourself frostbite_ , Mahanon’s scrawl reads. 

The leather of the gloves is soft to the touch. They slide onto Dorian’s hands easily, and he finds to his delight that the inside is lined with the soft, short fur of some unfortunate fennec. This is clearly nothing looted from a corpse, or bought from an overpriced merchant’s stand in Val Royeaux. The slightly uneven quality of the stitching along the seams suggests that they were made carefully, but by a less-than-experienced hand. 

There’s hardly any question in Dorian’s mind that the hand was Mahanon’s. 

\--

Dorian gets Sera good and drunk before he brings it up. 

He seriously doubts that Sera would like him very much, or even tolerate him under normal circumstances. Spoiled Tevinter nobles can’t be her choice company. But most of the Inquisition does not frequent the tavern, and that leaves both of them with limited options. Cassandra and Blackwall are too tightly-wound and righteous, Cole simply too young. Solas seems to think a cup of strong tea constitutes a wild night, and Josephine wouldn’t even have the thought cross her mind. And God forbid Viviane ever intrudes on their nightly haunt, lest she ruins it. 

The Inquisitor joins them every once in a while, but is largely too busy, and, frankly, the lithe elf can’t hold his liquor for shit. That leaves him, Bull, Sera, and Varric on a good night. And Bull and Krem sit with the Chargers more often than not. 

That leaves him, Varric, and Sera to flirt with alcoholism together. Varric tells stories, Sera laughs at his stories, and Dorian buys the drinks. He spends freely by habit, even if he has little more money to spare than the rest of them, and that seems to be enough to earn him some friendship. And, by now, he has grown to tolerate cheap booze as well as anyone. 

Tonight is an opportune night for this particular conversation. Varric, if the Skyhold gossip mill is to be believed, fought with Cassandra today, and is nowhere to be seen. The lack of Varric reduces the likelihood of this turning into grist for that same gossip mill at least by half. Bull, too, called an early night, which means it’s just him and Sera. Krem is still here, but he’s down the bar a few seats and chatting with a couple of the Chargers. It’s as safe as it is likely to get. 

“So, Sera,” he begins. “With Mahanon… tell me, honestly, am I missing something? Some secret Dalish courting ritual? Or is there some piece of elven culture at play where I have somehow failed to signal to him that I’m interested?” 

It is no revelation to Sera that Dorian has it bad for their boss. It is no secret to _anyone_ at Herald’s Rest, unfortunately. Dorian would have preferred if it was, but the beer they brew here in the South is… stronger than he is used to, and let it never be said that Dorian Pavus is a man of restraint and moderation. 

Sera snorts a little at the question, but she doesn’t burst out in outright laughter like he’d feared she might. “And you’re askin’ _me_. God, you must really be desperate if I’m your authority on all things elfy... Well, I dunno. Maybe, think horses, not quillbacks. Have you ever said to yourself, _hmm_ , I know, he might just not swing that way?” 

Dorian groans into his beer. His face feels hot, and he’s not sure if it’s from the drink or the embarrassment. “Could I really be this pretty for nothing, Sera?” 

“Don’t matter how pretty you are. Or how well you do your hair. If he’s not wanting to see what’s in your pants, it’s no good, innit?” 

Yes, he is already regretting bringing this up. “But Bull _swears_ \--” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. He _would_ say the Inquisitor was flirtin’ with him, wouldn’t he? Sounds good, gettin’ it on with the boss. Fact of the matter is, it didn’t go nowhere, even if he was after Bull. Which we don’t know he was.” 

“But he made me _gloves_ ,” Dorian says desperately. 

“And he’s made me a new bow. Twice. Look,” Sera spreads her hands out across the bartop like she’s about to make some major pronouncement. “Couldn’t tell you the specifics, but the Dalish? They’ve got a real stick up their asses about this type of thing. Like most things with them. But you and I both know that type of thing doesn’t typically stop our Herald. Fact of the matter is, if he wanted to, he would. Cuz he would want to. So he would. Y’know? Simple as that. Not much more you can do at this point, except sit tight.” 

As usual, despite being essentially monosyllabic, Sera’s advice is infuriatingly sound. 

Dorian drains his pint with a grimace. “Great. So your best advice is basically ‘ _get fucked, Dorian, he’ll make a move if he wants to?_ ’” 

Sera plows on manically, wholly ignorant of Dorian’s distress. “Sit tight and look pretty. Yeah. Always worked for you before, eh?”

“Wonderful, Sera, just _wonderful_.” 

And, perfect, not only has Dorian been oblivious to how his voice has been steadily rising, but now he’s spoken loud enough that they’ve caught Krem’s attention, and he’s coming over their way. 

“If that’s the end of Sera’s advice, let me give mine,” Krem says matter-of-factly, “you could, you know, try talking to him.” 

“You think I haven’t! I’ve been practically begging him to take an interest since Haven!” His voice comes out higher than he wants it to, and entirely incredulous. 

“No, I mean like, _talk_ to him talk to him. Spend some time with him. Be his friend. He obviously doesn’t mind your company, or he would take more pains to avoid it.” 

“What, so I can feel all the more disappointment when he tells me I’m the brother he never had?” 

“Do you even know if he has a brother?” Krem shoots back. 

Dorian winces. “Touché. ” 

Both Sera and Krem look at him blankly. 

“A touch! A point! ‘ _You’ve got me there_!’” 

“Next,” Sera says, managing to almost be condescending, “you might try using words everyone understands. No good they do, your fancy words, if nobody understands ‘em.” 

\-- 

“Nothing here worth having,” Scout Harding says of the Hissing Wastes. “I say, let the Venatori have it.” 

Dorian is inclined to agree with her: there’s nothing to see but sand dunes for miles, and the terrible wind-on-sand noise that gives the place its name is already making his jaw ache. 

And yet Mahanon is on his hands and knees pulling herbs out of the ground before they get out of sight of the camp. 

“Vandal Aria,” he says to their party, as though that means anything to them. “I figured we might find it here -- it’ll grow just about anywhere.” 

Mahanon is, and continues to be, a miracle to Dorian. This is a regular occurrence, regardless of location. Often, they have barely made it out of their campsite before He Who Walks In Andraste’s Light, their Most Holy Herald is down on his hands and knees in the dirt, enthusiastically pulling up weeds. 

He hands Dorian a sprig of the small white flower he’s inspecting. “You’ll like this. Here, smell.” 

Dorian does. It smells of honey and trampled grass. It’s simple, floral, and clean. At that moment, after days of smelling nothing but horse shit and the party’s collective body odor, it smells better than the most expensive of his perfumes. 

The first time Dorian joined the Inquisitor afield, he’d been absolutely taken aback by the comfort with which Mahanon looted everything in sight: his quick fingers got into everything, from the pockets and packs of their dead enemies to chips of precious stones from the cliff sides. When Mahanon had caught him staring, he looked at Dorian quizzically. 

“What was that about?” he’d asked later, his voice low. Not wanting to be overheard, Dorian now realizes. “It’s not like I’ve hesitated before to take what I need from humans. Why would I start now? Our cause is good.”

And… right. It’s easy enough to forget these days, but there is that whole thing where Mahanon is not human. Not only not-human, but a Dalish elf. The nomadic forest-dwellers seem worlds away from anything Dorian knows. There’s also a distinct subtext to what Mahanon said which hasn’t set well with him since. A certain hint of _lost everything_ and _theft for survival_ that leaves a pit in Dorian’s stomach. Even the firmest reassurances to himself that they sent more than adequate aid to clan Lavellan do little to set it at ease. 

Regardless, he'd never looked askance at the elf after that. 

Vandal Aria. Mahanon is right: he does like it. Honey, fresh grass. It smells like a warm afternoon. Like clean sheets. Like being safe. Dorian wishes in that moment he could capture this exact scent, bottle it up, and keep it with him forever. 

All he says is, “always a terror to the local herbs and flowers. Tsk tsk.” 

As usual, the Inquisitor takes Dorian’s gentle teasing up with painful seriousness. “It grows abundantly here. I would never take something if it meant any harm, I’m only --” 

“Yes, yes, of course. You know I don’t _really_ think you’re a threat to the local ecosystems, don’t you?” 

Sera groans audibly. “Can we _please_ stop talking about plants, get out of camp, and get on with it?”

The plant is quickly pulled up and stashed away in a small leather satchel at the Inquisitor’s hip. He smiles wryly and dusts the dirt from his hands. “Fine, you all can thank me later when the tonics shelf is well-stocked. You all do know those have to come from somewhere, right? They don’t just stock themselves?” 

With that, they’re off across the sandy plain. 

Dorian thinks… he thinks he has an idea. Something to see to, once they return to Skyhold.


	3. Favored/Faded

The book makes a pleasing _thud_ as Dorian places it in front of Mahanon at the war table, upsetting half a dozen of Leliana’s carefully-placed figurines and sending a few loose pieces of parchment fluttering to the floor. 

It’s been a few days since they returned to Skyhold. And, despite the Herald’s crushing calendar of post-travel business, it seems they are alone. Dorian has gone to some pains to make sure of it: he’s watched Leliana, Cullen, Cassandra, and Morrigan all leave in turn before risking passing through the double-doors of the war room himself. That in itself has taken him the better part of the evening, lurking awkwardly in the garden and peering through the as-of-yet unfixed hole in the east wall. 

Although the rest of the Inquisitor’s high command has already left for the night, Mahanon has remained bent over the long-deserted war table, his attention fixed so wholly on the map before him that Dorian half expects him to jump at his sudden intrusion. 

The Chant of Light being sung drifts in from the courtyard, and the Inquisitor just stifles a yawn. “Hello, Dorian. Please don’t tell me you have some other crisis for me. I’m just about at my limit.” 

“Quite the contrary. I’ve brought something to distract you: _The Botanical Compendium_ by Ines Arancia. I thought you might like it. You mentioned not knowing the proper names of all those plants you’re always stuffing in your pack. Did you know there are four different species of elfroot, for example? I certainly didn’t.” 

_Presents_. Does this count as following Sera’s advice? Krem’s? Probably not. The dust-induced headache he gave himself from digging around Skyhold’s basement library has hardly faded a full day later, and there is nothing stopping him at this point from tossing this gift at the Inquisitor and fleeing. 

But the crease in Mahanon’s brow is already softening. He starts to smile, already reaching to begin leafing through the book, and that much is enough for Dorian to stay a few more moments. 

A stray pressed flower falls from the pages, and down to the table. The Herald picks it up carefully between his thumb and forefinger. “This is beautiful, Dorian, thank you. I’ll have it back to you in a few days, I promise --” 

“No, no! It’s yours to keep. Trust me, with the amount of dust I found it under, no one was using it.” 

_Maker_. Already, he needs to watch his tongue. There’s a lot that can be gleaned from that particular sentence, and he wonders if Mahanon is already conjuring up all-too-accurate images of Dorian tearing through the cobwebs in the basement library on his behalf. It would be an image that would make it much too obvious exactly how much Dorian _cares_. How he’s still hoping, waiting… 

Maybe he doesn’t need to worry so much. Mahanon is still beaming down at the book, flipping through the pages and hardly looking at Dorian. “And no one was using it!” he exclaims. “I can do more than just enjoy this, we can put this to good use. I’ll bring it down to the Undercroft tomorrow and show Dagna. I think with a few tweaks, I can get your lyrium potions working better, and Sera’s bee bombs, and maybe I can even get some rashvine nettle to finally grow out in the garden, and then we can --” 

He cuts himself off, flushing. “But I’m sure you don’t care about the specifics of all that.” 

“No, no, I --” 

_Would listen if you were speaking a different tongue. Would stay to listen to you read a dictionary. Would sweep the floors if it meant spending the evening in your presence._

“-- was never much good at botany, but it can’t be too late to learn.” 

Mahanon laughs a little, shaking his head. “I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into here. I’ll be on about it for hours. Besides, there’s no time for that.” 

“No time?” 

The other man gestures down to the war table. “The way I figure it, I need to ride for Crestwood tomorrow if I’m to have any chance of catching Hawke and the Warden. Leliana’s spies reported back today, and they say it’s… quite unstable in that region.” Mahanon rubs his eyes, suddenly looking both very young and very tired. “You know, just like every other region on this fucking map. We’ll need more time than we were planning to get the route clear.” 

“And by ‘clear the route,’ you mean roaming about the area killing anything that moves?” 

This garners him a small smile. “Something like that.” 

_Don’t, Dorian --_

“Oh, please do take me with you. You know I can’t bear it when you have all the fun without me.” 

Too late to stop himself, Dorian’s teeth sink into his tongue. But Mahanon doesn’t look displeased at the suggestion. He’s looking down at the map again with an intense air of concentration, as though he is moving them all around like little pawns on the map. “I don’t know. I think this might be one you want to sit out. It sounds wholly unpleasant. More corpses up and running around, and the scouts said it didn’t stop raining the whole time they were there.” 

Dorian goes flush with embarrassment. “Absolutely not, Inquisitor. I will not have you treating me like I’m some -- some spoiled prince, or delicate hothouse flower. I am a _necromancer_ , and despite my lackluster performance on the Exalted Plains, I promise you, I am not the least bit squeamish about the dead.” 

Mahanon looks up with what Dorian thinks is a playful glint in his eye. “What about the Fallow Mire?” 

Dorian is surely walking directly into a trap, but he smiles brightly and plows ahead nonetheless. “What _about_ the Fallow Mire, your Worship? Just your run-of-the-mill plague-infected swamp. Nothing to write home about.” 

“Please. You _hated_ it. You were in the baths for hours! You made Solas cast cleansing charms on every precious thing we brought back!” 

He flushes. Perhaps he was giving himself a little too much credit, thinking he handled that particular expedition with grace. Still, he digs his heels in. “I see nothing wrong with that! I am far too pretty, talented, and charming to die of the plague. It would waste a hundred years of good breeding!” 

Mahanon grins teasingly up at him. “If you go to Crestwood, you’ll catch a chill in the rain, and then where will we be?” 

“I assure you, the leather on my boots is already stained beyond repair. There’s really no point in stopping now.” 

Andraste help him, he is about to humiliate himself and say _please_. Please, Mahanon, take me with you to the horrible corpse-infested swamp. Please take me to risk my life, freeze my toes, _and_ ruin my nice clothes in the mud while I’m at it. 

Luckily for Dorian and his remaining shreds of dignity, Mahanon seems only interested in teasing him. “In all seriousness -- well, I was planning on taking Solas with me, but I imagine he’d appreciate the downtime. He… lost a friend, a few days ago. If you really don’t mind, I would obviously enjoy your company.” 

If Mahanon’s tone wasn’t so deadly serious, Dorian would say, _Solas has friends?_ But as it is, Solas’s loss is his gain, and it’s all Dorian can do not to beam. 

“And,” Mahanon adds. “ _Please_ stop calling me Inquisitor so much. I’m begging you! It’s all everyone will address me as. I’m going to forget my own name one of these days.” 

The Chant of Light floats in again, audible even through the thick walls that separate the war room from the outside, and Dorian wonders if Mahanon ever regrets his decision to allow the conversion of the weedy, overrun Skyhold garden into a Chantry. 

It does make it difficult to forget certain things. Things that, maybe, Mahanon would prefer to. 

\-- 

In Dorian’s dreams that night, Mahanon is holding a bowl of fire and standing still as stone. His red hair looks like flame. His pale skin looks like flame. His eyes look like flame. Dorian can’t even look at him without his eyes aching. 

It’s all so Maker-damnedly obvious. 

He wakes well before the sun rises, and is unable to sleep again. He packs his bags for the road. 

\-- 

Oh, but Dorian _hates_ Crestwood. 

The water and mud under his boots were, until just a few hours ago, the bottom of a lake. It stinks of fish and corpses, and he keeps almost losing his footing on algae-slick rocks. Worse, he’s pretty sure there’s a hole in one of his boot soles. Despite his careful waterproofing of the leather exterior, water still seems to be seeping into his left sock at an alarming rate. 

Plodding ahead of him through the freshly-drained Old Crestwood, Mahanon looks little happier than Dorian feels. His short hair is hanging down in his face, and there’s a steady drip of water falling into his eyes from the wet locks as more rain comes down on him. 

Although they are technically here for Hawke’s contact in the Gray Wardens, they’ve arrived a day ahead of schedule -- and, as usual, they’ve also arrived to be welcomed by a real clusterfuck, which immediately becomes Mahanon’s personal responsibility both as the Inquisitor, and as a real soft-hearted bastard. 

When they come to the entrance of the cave system where the rift causing Crestwood’s little undead problem is located, Mahanon winces as if in pain. “Yeah, this would be the place. Let’s get this over with as fast as we can, shall we?” 

\--

Dorian really, _really_ hates Crestwood. Honestly, he hopes he never hears the name again. 

It’s not just the never-ending reanimated corpses, or the beating cold rain, although that is bad enough by itself. It’s not even the eventual discovery of an entire town's worth of drowned citizens or the desperate fingernail marks left by refugees on the walls of the caves below the flooded village. No, although he’s sure that’s enough to disrupt a good week’s worth of sleep, it all pretty par for the course compared to what comes next. 

It’s how Crestwood starts the seemingly-inauspicious chain of events that then leads them to the battle at Adamant, and how Adamant leads to a situation so bad that the Inquisitor throws the entire party into the Fade. 

Physically. Into the Fade. 

In theory, the spirit realm has not been walked physically by mere mortals like Dorian since the Magisters of old -- and, yeah, it feels about as bad for a Tevinter Altus to be stumbling to his feet in the Fade as you’d expect. Even now that they’re all done freefalling, are all standing right-side-up, and are evidently alive in spite of everything, he still feels like vomiting. 

He supposes that, if he manages not to cause the next Blight while they’re here, he’ll be making his ancestors proud for once. 

Lucky him. 

Between Mahanon, Hawke, and Stroud, they get down to brass tacks quickly: move forward, don’t look at anything too hard, and get out as fast as possible. _If_ possible. It’s quite obvious to Dorian that it’s that or die in here, and they set out with a grim determination. Sera’s hands grip her bow white-knuckled, and even Bull is casting glances over his shoulder. 

It's an illustrious company they’re in, if it is time to die. There’s Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall, suitably drenched in blood and guts from the battle. Stroud, who may be the only Grey Warden both sane and living by the time they emerge. And there’s Mahanon, of course, the ever-unlucky Herald, with his mouth drawn tight in determination and the Mark on his hand flickering and spritzing with energy.

Grimly, Dorian looks first at Sera and then at Bull. If anyone is to get out of here, it has to be Mahanon, and in his mind, he begins the work of steeling himself to put his own body on the line to make that happen if need be. 

They plow onward. There are demons on more demons to fight, and taunts coming out of the thin air. A dread that permeates everything, a desperate and frantic fear in the air that makes Dorian feel like he’s going to go insane. 

Even now, Mahanon stops to open chests. To read notes and light candles and peer into mirror faces. Careful, dutiful, and still carrying a spark of curiosity that Dorian can’t help but admire. Not that he, personally, won’t be doing his very best to drink this all away if they get out of this alive -- _or maybe he can even get Cole to erase the whole memory!_ \-- but it makes his chest ache with affection nonetheless. 

No one talks. Even Bull has no tough comfort to give. 

Mahanon begins to quietly narrate to them the objects he stops to examine in what must be an attempt to break the oppressiveness of the silence. “A letter from a boy during the Blights… A little altar… Tarot cards… Bloody ripples in the water… Another candle.” 

It does little to lift the mood. 

And just when Dorian thinks he couldn’t get any more unsettled, lo and behold: there’s a graveyard emerging from the blue-green mist in front of them, with all of _their_ names on the headstones. Sera, Bull, himself…it is as though the whole of the Inquisitor’s inner circle is buried in the little graveyard before them. 

Everything becomes… very still, as they approach it. No one speaks a word as Mahanon walks from one grave to the next, fingers brushing across the tops of the headstones as he goes. For a moment, the words written below their names seem like nonsense. _The Nothing_ , says Sera’s. _Madness_ , says Bull’s. 

Then it clicks. _Ah, so we’re sticking with the theme_ , he thinks dryly to himself. _Greatest fears._

_Temptation_ is what his own headstone says. He’s too curious not to look, and a chill runs down his spine at seeing his own name carved into the stone. But the fear? It’s a cheap shot. Temptation from what, exactly? A nice piece of ass? It sounds like something his father would say. _Beware temptation, Dorian_. Magister Pavus might have even said it to him once or twice verbatim, when they both knew what he meant was ‘for the sake of the bloodline, do try your best to repress those gay thoughts you’ve been having.’ 

Right on cue, the mocking voice from above asks, “Dorian? It is Dorian…. right? For a moment I mistook you for your father.” It’s a little obvious, but it hits the mark. He winces. _Damn_ the omnipotent fear demon for knowing so exactly, and so expectedly, just where his weak spots are. 

He’d be able to really start feeling sorry for himself about it if Mahanon didn’t choose that moment to finally turn away from the graves to face the rest of the party, pale as a sheet. 

Dorian realizes in a rush that there is no headstone there for the leader of their party. He also realizes that it was the Inquisitor who opened this rift into the Fade, so, in many ways, this is his waking nightmare more than it is any of theirs. Why bother slapping Mahanon’s name and fear on a slab of stone when they’re already staring at what he fears most in the world? 

Bull claps a huge hand on Mahanon’s shoulder. “Let’s go, boss. Don’t let it get to you.” 

Sera turns and spits in the direction of the graveyard. 

Dorian, for his part, sounds a little strangled when he tries to speak. “Onward and upward, huh?” 

There is a set of very specific and very secret plans written up in the Skyhold library for the dealings with and transport of his remains back home to Tevinter in the event of his untimely death. There is also a small sum of money set aside to discreetly cover the expenses, in case the Inquisitor no longer has coffers of its own, or is unwilling. Following the news of Felix’s death, he’d informed his few remaining trusted contacts in Minrathous, and, perhaps foolishly, Leliana, of these contingencies. Along with these last wishes are the strict instructions that he is to be buried nowhere near the Pavus family, but rather as quietly and privately as possible on Alexius’s estate. 

Yes, he realizes, he has already fully decided that if the time comes, he will die for the Inquisition. Or, more accurately, for Mahanon. If anyone wants to get to the Inquisitor, they’ll have to go directly through Dorian first. It’s been remarkably true, almost from the moment they met. 

Now, seeing the grim look on Mahanon’s face, he hopes to all things Holy -- if indeed there are any -- that the spymaster has done what she does best and kept his secrets, and that Mahanon has never caught wind of exactly how prepared Dorian is for his own death. 

\-- 

It’s twice now that Dorian has seen Mahanon hesitate like that. 

The first was in the false future, as the Elder One approached, mowing down their friends in his path. They’d stood before the portal back to their reality, and even in the face of losing everything, he’d seen the Inquisitor _hesitate_. Desperate to go to Leliana’s side and die alongside her. Dorian had almost had to pull him bodily through the portal himself. 

Here, watching as the Warden disappears, sword blade shining in the darkness, Dorian sees Mahanon hesitate once again. 

Except for this time, it is too late for Dorian to change his course to drag the other man with him. When he tumbles through the rift from the Fade back into the physical world, landing flat on his back and still in the midst of incredible chaos, he has no confidence that the Herald will follow. The air is knocked from his lungs, and for a long time, all he can do is lie there, opening and closing his mouth without being able to draw a single breath. 

Apparently, that feeling is called “being winded from a fall,” not heartbreak, although his chest hurts badly enough that it could be either: he’s still lying there on the ground, gasping and staring skyward, when Mahanon comes through the rift and pulls Dorian back to his feet. 

His grip is firm and warm and _alive_ , and real, real, real. 

Moments later, those same hands turn to seal the rift with the Mark, and Dorian’s own skin seems almost to burn with that same power.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this Skyhold mapping isn't *quite* correct (there is no hole on that side of the war room wall)... i have spent too much fucking time on this game that i know that


	4. Tornado/More Slowly

There are a great many bad things about Dorian’s room at Skyhold, and only one good thing.

Firstly, it’s small and almost wholly undecorated, and the wind comes in something terrible at night through the un-closable slit of the back window. He really hasn’t been warm since they arrived -- he’s cold when he drifts off at night, and still cold when he wakes in the morning. The mountain chill seems to sit somewhere deep in the stone walls so that even the brightest and strongest of the sun’s rays fail to warm them.

And Vivienne sleeps next door. He finds himself sneaking in and out like a schoolboy who’s cutting class, despite the fact that he has done nothing wrong. That much is of little matter: every time the First Enchanter so much as looks his way, Dorian manages to walk away feeling as though he’s somehow embarrassed himself without exactly knowing how.

But there is _one_ good thing about Dorian’s room at Skyhold: if he looks out his front window in the earliest hours of the morning, he can see down into the greenery interior garden. And, often enough, he can see as Mahanon comes and goes, tending to the herb pots in the far corner.

The Inquisitor keeps a busy schedule. Dorian tells himself he only enjoys watching Mahanon’s comings and goings as a way to reassure him that the Herald is yet living -- it is often the only sight of him Dorian will see in a day. But there’s more to it than that, of course, if he is being truthful: the sight of Mahanon diligently tending his garden is a comforting sign that _something_ is right in this world, and the fondness he feels for the other man seems to warm him from the ever-present chill.

But today, when Dorian sees Mahanon bent over his fucking plants, all he can feel is a sickly, tight feeling in his throat.

It’s been days now since the whole party returned. And before that, a good week since the Inquisitor rode out ahead of the party returning from Adamant with Cassandra and Cullen. He knows that there was much business for the Inquisitor that could not wait: a flurry of judgments to be passed, reports to be written, a dozen new additional missions to be added to the already-cluttered war table. He _knows_ that. He has no right to feel… hurt, somehow, but he does.

He has hardly seen Mahanon since he was staring up at the other man from the ground, flat on his back and fresh out of the Fade.

Yet he’s seen Mahanon with Cassandra. Out with Bull, training in the courtyard. He’s heard Mahanon’s voice, speaking in hushed tones with Solas on the floor below him in the research tower.

Even Sera had told him over drinks last night that Mahanon had come to speak with her. She’d said that she’d almost put an arrow right through his eye, when he’d pried her door open. And, despite her complaints about the whole matter, she’d been more at ease than Dorian had seen her since they left the Fade.

“Interruptin' target practice!," she'd said. "If I would’ve gotten him, he’d have had it coming! Tho, with his luck, the bolt would have bounced right off. Nabbed up out of the ait by her Divine ladybits Andraste herself’s right hand!”

Dorian’s been good. He’s rested. He’s cleaned the dead-people grime and the ozonic smell of the Fade out of his armor and sharpened the dulled blade on his staff. He’s only gotten blackout drunk _once_ , and that was in the relative privacy and grim silence of Sera’s tent on the road back from Adamant.

He’s been so _good_ , and quiet, and has asked for nothing.

And now, apparently, he’s a lower priority than some pots of fucking elfroot.

\--

A falling book hitting Solas’s desk.

That’s what seems to do it.

It wasn’t a _deliberate_ throw on Dorian’s part, but it’s also not something he’s been trying particularly hard to avoid. He’s stripped about half of the books in the research library from their shelves this afternoon and has simply tossed those he likes less aside. _The Journal of the Tranquil_ deserves its freshly-cracked spine, and the seventh (seventh!) volume of the official _Chantry History_ deserves equally to fall down the spire and onto Solas’s desk.

Dorian heard some curses in Elvish following the impact, and the sound of Solas slamming the door leading to the battlements as he left. Then, not fifteen minutes later, Mahanon is coming hurriedly up the spiral stairs to find him.

“Dorian! Solas told me you were -- throwing books at him? What on earth is all this?”  
Mahanon stands before him. It’s been all he’s wanted, these past few days. But now that Mahanon is in front of him in the library, finally, _finally _,__ he finds himself… well, doing this. Showing his best self, as per usual.

“Trite propaganda, all of this! Every book on the Imperium you have here is a load of drivel. But, oh, if you want seven volumes on if Divine Justinia took a shit last Sunday, I’m just drowning in information, I don’t know what I will do with it all!”

He’d be causing quite the stir... if there was anyone left on this floor of the research tower not already driven away by his antics. Upstairs, Leliana is certainly hearing every word of this. But he can’t manage to make himself stop. He wants to grab Mahanon the instant he sees him, to touch him and hold him and feel that he is still alive and real, but he can’t. He wants and he wants, and there is _nothing_ for him to do about it. Absolutely no recourse.

Grabbing another volume from the shelf -- it could be a fragile antique or a valuable first edition, he doesn’t know -- Dorian throws it over his shoulder without so much as looking at it.

 _ _“__ What’s this really about, Dorian?” Mahanon’s tone is devastatingly calm despite the literary carnage around them. It makes Dorian’s face burn like he’s been out in the sun for hours.

“Do I _need_ something else? As if it isn’t enough that, after all these gifts to the Inquisition, I can’t find a single book in my native tongue worth reading! I am beginning to think you Southerners really _do_ see us all as evil magisters, what with --”

Mahanon grabs one of Dorian’s arms, stopping his frantic gesturing cold. _ _ _“Dorian.”___

The grip on his arm is enough to ground him somewhat, and hard enough to shock some honest words out of him. Maker, the Herald is so much stronger than he looks. He could find bruises tomorrow.

He’d like so much to find bruises tomorrow. “After the Fade, I -- I thought you’d be here sooner.”

The grip on Dorian’s arm softens somewhat. “I would have been, if I could. I swear, I’ve hardly had a moment to myself since.”

“Oh, I understand. Really, I do. Leading a heretical Southern cult does really do a number of one’s schedule, and you have ever so many followers to attend to, far be it from me --”

Dorian’s words don’t sound particularly convincing or not-upset, even to himself.

“I can’t fix… whatever this is, if you won’t ___tell_ me.__ Out with it.”

That voice has commanded legions and passed down judgments on royalty. Dorian swallows. “I... when I came through the rift, and you didn’t. I thought that was the end. I thought I’d lost you.”

And -- there he goes. Showing his hand prematurely once again. He laughs, then, and it’s a dangerous moment away from dissolving into tears. As if there _is_ anything for him to have lost, as if there is already something between them.

Which…

Sera did say the Dalish took things more slowly, and perhaps Dorian has gotten a lot luckier than he thought, because all Mahanon does to react to Dorian’s little proclamation is to take a step closer to him, his green eyes searing into Dorian’s with an intensity that suggests that maybe, just maybe, there _is_ something between them.

“I’m sorry,” Mahanon says. “I should have come sooner. I _wanted_ to come sooner. But I have duties as Inquisitor. Want as I may, my life is not wholly my own.”

“Surely you can afford a moment or two, now and then.” Dorian’s heart is in his throat, but he does his best to keep his tone light.

“Perhaps I can,” Mahanon replies.

They stand there, hardly a breath apart, out of sight in the little library alcove. He doesn’t dare move.

Dorian has crossed oceans -- literally! -- to be who he is freely. He has left family, fortune, and title behind for it, arriving friendless and penniless in a foreign land so that he has the freedom to love who he loves. Ironic, then, that when the opportunity presents itself to do just that, he finds himself unable to rise to the occasion.

 _ _ _Kiss him_ , __Dorian urges himself to no avail. ___Kiss him, please, Maker, just_ do it. __

Luckily for him, Mahanon moves first.

The kiss hardly lasts an instant. A gentle press of the other man’s lips to his, and then Mahanon pulls back, a hand cradling Dorian’s cheek, his gaze expectant and unsure. Waiting, it seems, for permission to continue.

Humiliatingly, the first thing out of Dorian’s mouth is, “Why did you… why now? After my father, I thought you were going to kiss me then, and then you _didn’t_ , and --”

“What, when you were distraught? When you’d said in your last breath that you were most definitely _not_ okay? Surely I would have been taking advantage of you.”

 _ _“__ Perhaps I would have liked to be taken advantage of in that way.”

A thumb rubs worriedly at his cheek. “You deserve better than that, wouldn’t you say? And besides, I wasn’t sure then. I’m -- ” A breathless laugh. “I’m hardly sure now. Almost dying does things to you. This is hardly any better! You can tell me to stop anytime, really, I won’t be offended.”

It’s a little late now, but Dorian wraps his arm about Mahanon’s waist, pressing his hand firmly into the other man’s back. “Have I not been almost begging for this since we first met? Be sure now.”

Once again, he’s foolishly showing Mahanon almost the whole of his hand.

But he’s rewarded for that with a hot, demanding kiss. The Inquisitor is pulling him close and holding him firmly, and Dorian would lay down every card he holds; be a fool for the rest of his life if it meant more moments like this.

It’s heady and good and once they pull apart, Mahanon’s face is so open and hopeful as he gazes up at Dorian that for a moment, Dorian doesn’t even worry about what comes next.

That feeling only lasts a moment, though. He is still himself, and old hurt twists in his heart, one part of a tangled knot that refuses to untie. “And at Halamshiral? Were you unsure then?”

A ghost of a frown passes over Mahannon’s face. “I meant what I said that night,” he says earnestly. “The Winter Palace was… exhausting. I meant no slight to you. I would have happily spent the rest of the night at your side.”

Could it really be that straightforward? It fits with everything he has known of Mahanon up to this point: in all Dorian has known of him, he has seemed to speak his mind, to say what he thinks and feels straightforwardly and without any secondary motive.

And that in itself goes against everything Dorian has ever known.

Even here, a thousand miles from his homeland, people are the same. There are whispers, and words that do not mean what they say on the surface. Games played where the only end goal is the humiliation of one’s opponent. Mother Giselle’s watchful eyes waiting in the courtyard below his bedroom; Leliana’s at his back in the library, shining and corvine.

Still, he has known none of that from Mahanon, who now meets Dorian’s gaze with an easy sort of expectation.

_Kiss him, you idiot. You could both die tomorrow. Do it now, while you still can._

When Dorian slows time, he imagines he is holding something incredibly delicate and infinitesimally small perfectly still in his fingertips. Although time continues to move forward at its usual pace, when he kisses Mahanon again, he tries to hold that feeling in his heart. To hold himself still, hold the moment steady in his hands, and not think about the rest.

… Like any such spell, it cannot last for long.


End file.
